Thursday, May 24, 2012

Newton Reinvented

In the good old days, before the advent of campaign finance
reform, a stretch in prison was no bar to election. Mayor Michael Curley of
Boston, a colorful mob-connected figure in Massachusetts politics who made good
on his campaign pledge to get the washerwomen of the city off their knees, ran
the city from prison. Mr. Curley later rigged out all the washerwomen of Boston
with long handled mops.

It may well be the case that a stretch in jail was the
booster that rocketed Mr. Curley into a long and eventful career in politics.

Mr. Curley received news that he had been elected to
Boston’s Board of Alderman in 1904 while cooling his heels in prison on a fraud
conviction: He had fraudulently taken a civil service exam for two men applying
for postmen in his district, and the stint in prison helped to burnish his
reputation among the poor Irish of Boston as someone who was willing to go to
the mat for those in need. During his career in politics, both as Boston Mayor and
a U.S. Senator serving in the Congress from 1943 ton 1947, it was not uncommon
for the city’s poor and unemployed Irish to line up outside his house in the
mornings to speak with him about getting a job or to get a handout of a few
dollars to see them through the week.

Running for the Congress against blue-blooded Tom Eliot, the
son of a Unitarian minister, grandson of Harvard president Charles Eliot and a
former New Deal attorney of sterling reputation backed by Franklin Roosevelt,
Mr. Curley anchored his campaign in unvarnished appeals to ethnic, class and
religious bigotry, shaking thecommunist
spook stick againstthe White
Anglo-Saxon Protestant Yankee Eliot: “There is more Americanism in one half of
Jim Curley's ass than in that pink body of Tom Eliot." Having won a spot
in Congress, Mr. Curley proceeded to compile a voting record in support of the
Roosevelt administration that was the envy of New Deal pinkoes everywhere.

Mr. Curley’s long political career ended in 1951 when he
suffered an erosion of electoral support. Following his death, two statues
honoring Mr. Curley appeared in Faneuil Hall; a bar called “The Purple
Shamrock,” one of the mayor’s symbols, popped out of the ground nearby; his
house, known during his time as “the house with the shamrock shutters,” became
an historical site; and he was immortalized in the film “the Last Hurrah” as
the protagonist, Frank Skeffington. Disappointed with the film, Mr. Curley, a shameless
self-promoter but always the best guardian of his own reputation, initially
threatened to bring legal action against Edwin O’Connor, the author of the
novel, but on reflection thought better of it, telling Mr. O’Connor that he
most enjoyed “the part where I die.”

Somewhere in Bridgeport, where the old-guard Democratic Party
structure still lives and breathes, there may in the future be a spot for a
couple of Ernie Newton statues.

Governor Dannel Malloy, known for having in the past actively
participated in the campaigns of Democrats formally nominated by his party,
appeared to be consulting a similar script.

When queried by Hartford Courant reporter Jon Lender,
Mr. Malloy characterized the race in Bridgeport as “local issue, first and
foremost.” He urged voters in Bridgeport to “take into consideration all of the
abilities of the people that they have to choose from. It looks like there may
three names on the ballot. And so I think the people of Bridgeport have a
decision to make. I have to say to you that I’ve long been an advocate of a
second-chance society. As a prosecutor, as a governor, as a mayor I’ve
advocated for second chances. But ultimately in the political arena that’s a decision
for the public to make… I think the public has a balancing act. They have to
decide whether … the person has paid a sufficient price, whether they’ve
expressed sufficient remorse, whether they have the skill set necessary to do
the job. … That’s why we have elections, and I would urge all the voters to
vote.”

Mr. Newton offered a much abbreviated concision of the
governor’s remarks: "The governor said, `It's the people's decision.’”

Mr. Newton launched into a defense of his record in office,
minus the four years he passed in prison for having solicited a $5,000, one of
three felonies he was convicted of in 2005: "Felons are people too. They
can't say anything about my record in the House or Senate. It was impeccable.
If people truly are forgiving, you judge a man on his work ... I paid my debt
to society. I ought to be a free man to do whatever it is I want to do with my
life."

He told a reporter, “Listen, I still got friends in
Hartford.” His Democratic comrades in the legislature “know the (legislative)
process. I'm a team player. I know how to get things done." Surely, fellow
Democrats in the General Assembly and the governor’s office understand the
important role Bridgeport had played in statewide elections. After all, Mr.
Newton stressed, the city helped Mr. Malloy, the former mayor of Stamford, win
a slim victory in 2010.

Apparently, the governor, the titular head of the Democratic
Party in Connecticut, and Ms. DiNardo, the nominal head of the party, have for
the moment taken a hand’s off approach to what may well be Mr. Newton’s “Last
Hurrah.” Maybe they saw the movie.